Quality Connections is gearing up for growth in revenue, but perhaps more significantly, in employing and training more disabled and disadvantaged workers. The non-profit organization has been awarded a new half-million dollar contract to refill recycled printer toner cartridges and supply them to state agencies.
This is the first mandatory set-aside contract in Arizona, a mandatory purchasing plan for qualified non-profits.
With the new contract, and the added employment and job training that come with it, Quality Connections is empowering even more of its clients with productive, purposeful and independent lives. The contract allows Quality Connections to employ more than 20 disadvantaged or disabled individuals and train up to 15 more each month. At the same time, the company is keeping used printer toner cartridges out of landfills.
“We’re starting to ramp up,” said Quality Connections CEO Armando Bernasconi. “We’re hiring another customer service rep and another manufacturing technician.”
This milestone award is largely the result of Quality Connections’ seven-year track record in successfully doing this work for the state and hundreds of other customers.
“It gives our workers with disabilities a sense of independence and a sense of pride in their work,” said Christopher Keeler, sales manager for QCoffice, the company’s revenue generating division. “It enables them to be truly contributing members of our community and it improves the quality of life for them and their families.”
“To me it means that the State of Arizona is serious about providing opportunities for people with disabilities through their contracting,” added Bernasconi.
In addition to providing a six percent net savings on remanufactured laser toner cartridges, the contract award may provide the added economic benefit to Northern Arizona through anticipated additional revenue from co-op members using the program (cities, counties and school districts). The contract and the work it generates has multiple benefits: it reduces the need for, and costs associated with, public assistance for disabled persons in the state while at the same time, diverting e-waste from landfills.
“Everybody wins: the state, our clients, taxpayers and the environment,” said Bernasconi.
Arizona’s set-aside program is a special purchasing mandate that endeavors to set aside one percent of the state’s purchasing to certified non-profit organizations that serve people with disabilities, like Quality Connections, as well as Arizona Industries for the Blind and Arizona Correctional Industries.
“This is the first mandatory set-aside that I’m aware of – a big step in the right direction for the State of Arizona,” said Nobody’s Perfect CEO D Williamson. “This is the state really helping people with disabilities.” Nobody’s Perfect is partnering with Quality Connections by collecting used toner cartridges from state offices.
Quality Connections has been working toward this milestone for several years and has demonstrated a capacity and track record through its various departments, including QCtoner. QCtoner, the remanufacturing department of QCoffice, was created in 2004 through an establishment grant from the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES). That led to a non-mandatory set-aside contract in 2006, and the exclusive contract with Coconino County in 2012 for all ink and toner printer cartridges. The new contract will lead to significant growth for QCoffice and allow this non-profit to compete with the big Goliaths in the industry.
“What it means is we have established ourselves as the leading set-aside provider,” explained Bernasconi about landing this contract to assist the state with its requirement to contract with set-aside non-profits with work programs. “It has implications for Flagstaff; it has implications for people with disabilities in Flagstaff.”
QCoffice is Quality Connections’ online office supply retail store. QCtoner, Quality Connections’ own line of remanufactured laser toner cartridges, are only available from QCoffice. In addition to toner, QCoffice provides thousands of office supplies for the home or office to hundreds of customers statewide. As a non-profit, it does not have to charge its customers sales tax and can pass those savings on.
In addition to its employment and employment training programs through QCoffice, Quality Connections also provides resident and day treatment services. Combined, all of the organization’s programs help transform individuals with disabilities and disadvantages from tax collectors to tax payers.
“I want to stress how big of a deal it is for Northern Arizona and our ability to train and employ people with disabilities in Northern Arizona,” said Bernasconi. FBN
For more information visit qualiticonnections.org and qcoffice.org.
Written by Steele Wotkins